


All Bets Are Off

by happyaspie



Series: Tony Stark is a Good Mentor [19]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Flash Thompson Being A Jerk, Gambling, Innocent Peter Parker, Intern Peter Parker, Life Lessons, Parker Luck, Peer Pressure, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark is a Good Mentor, YouTube, stupid bets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-18 19:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20318212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyaspie/pseuds/happyaspie
Summary: When Peter finds himself owing money that he didn't even have after making a wager he'd been certain he couldn't lose... he begrudgingly goes to Tony for help.  Lucky for him (for once), his mentor is willing to not only give him the cash but some good advice too.





	All Bets Are Off

It was Friday afternoon and Peter was ready for school to let out. The week had started out fine enough but one stupid mistake had caused the remaining days to sort of go downhill from there. At lunch on Monday, Peter and Ned had been watching YouTube videos as they ate. Going down the rabbit hole that was the internet, they ended up on a video of a guy who was attempting to eat an entire jar of peanut butter in two minutes. That lead into a girl trying to eat eight crackers in under a minute until they landed on another video of a group of teenagers stuffing marshmallows into their mouths. 

As they laughed at the antics they managed to get several other students attention. Including Flash who walked up just in time to hear Ned tell Peter that he could probably nail any one of those challenges. Peter laughed and vaguely agreed, leading to Flash issuing a bet.

"There is no way you could do any one of those challenges.", the boy said with a roll of his eyes. "...which is why I bet you twenty dollars that you can't eat an entire package of peanut butter cheese crackers in less than a minute--without a drink."

Peter, not typically being one to make any sort of bets, mostly because he generally had the worst luck ever, he thought it through for all of thirty seconds. He could eat, he was good at eating and he'd mastered the art of quickly stuffing his face while on patrols. He felt rather confident that he could take down six of those crackers in less than a minute and twenty dollars, well, that was a lot of money. So, knowing he would undoubtedly be able to handle swallowing it all down in the allotted the amount of time, Peter agreed.

"This is going to be the easiest twenty dollars I've ever made my life.", Peter said to Ned as he unwrapped the crackers and laid them out on a napkin. 

Flash scoffed and sat down in the seat across from them. "Might want to stop your yapping and get ready because I'm about to start the timer.", he said as he laid his cellphone on the table where the one-minute timer was clear enough for everyone around them to see. 

By the time the clock had started they'd attracted quite a crowd and Peter was feeling more confident than ever as everyone cheered his name. He could do this. It wasn't even about luck. _It was about skill... _

However, once he had placed the third cracker in his mouth he was starting to falter. By the fourth, he was questioning his ability to finish. His mouth was had become desert dry and the chewed up crackers had become one big gummy blob that refused to be swallowed. At one point he could have sworn that the number of crackers on the napkin was multiplying when he wasn't looking. 

All too soon the timer was beeping and there was still one cracker taunting Peter from the napkin in front of him. Growling in frustration, Peter took a long swig of the water bottle Ned had placed in his hand as Flash gloated. 

"Well, Parker. That leaves you owing me twenty bucks and I better have it by Friday or I'm going to tell everyone that you stole it from my backpack. Then you can get in trouble _and I can have twenty dollars_."

Having no doubt that Flash would indeed do such a thing, Peter spent the week wracking his brain for a solution. He considered asking May if he could do some extra chores to earn it but it was towards the end of the month and she needed to put everything back for the next month's rent. He did ask Mr. Dlemar if he could help out around the store to earn some cash but the man said he didn't have anything that needed to be done and collecting cans for recycling had gotten him a grand total of two dollars and forty-five cents.

He had sort of hoped that Flash would drop it eventually but that didn't happen and the only option he had left that he could think of was to ask Tony. It wasn't his favorite plan but it was all he had left. So as he walked into the lab on Friday afternoon he tossed his backpack aside and strode up to where Tony was working. "Hey, Mr. Stark. Can I ask you a question?", he said in what he hoped sounded like a casual tone.

"Sure, kid. What did you want to ask me?", the man said with a smile fully expecting Peter to question him about some sort of technical mechanics or at a minimum ask him his opinion on some hairbrained theory he'd come up. However, that was not the case and the question Peter did pose caught him slightly off guard, though he didn't show it.

"Can I borrow twenty dollars? I promise I'll pay it back as soon as I can, Mr. Stark.", Peter asked and nearly sighed in relief when Tony didn't say anything about it and simply reached for his wallet.

"All I have is a fifty.", he said, placing the bill in Peter's hand before squinting his eyes in the boy's direction. "Wait. What do you need twenty dollars for anyway, kid?"

Unsure if he really wanted to get into his with his mentor or not, Peter hesitated. Though in the end, he decided that if the man was going to loan him money that maybe an explanation was fair. "Uh... Well, I _may have_ lost a bet..."

Tony continued to look at Peter scrutinizingly for several seconds before taking a deep breath through his nose and crossing his arms over his chest. "I didn't take you for much of a gambling man, Mr. Parker.", he said seriously. Then after a few clicks of his tongue and a shake of his head he continued. "You're not going to make a habit of it are you?" In reality, he assumed it wasn't anything serious. A playground dare or friendly wager more than likely but it was fun to mess with the kid and the way his eyes went wide when implied that he'd been actually gambling was well worth the effort.

"No! It wasn't like that, Mr. Stark. I swear. I wasn't, I wasn't doing anything _like that_... I just--", Peter stuttered at the man's accusation. _Maybe he should have been a little more specific..._

"--Calm down, kid. I didn't really think you were.", Tony laughed. "Seriously though, what gives?"

At first, Peter had really wanted to avoid telling Tony the exact details of his loss but after the man made it sound like he'd been playing BlackJack at an underground casino he had no problems coming clean. "I uh, Well, You see, what happened was... Ned and I were watching YouTube videos at lunch--"

"--Okay. I'm gonna stop you right there for a minute.", Tony said as he leaned over and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you about to tell me that you attempted some sort of stupid internet challenge?"

All Peter could do was smile because he certainly couldn't deny that. Not completely anyway. "Um... sort of? Not _exactly_.", he said leading to Tony rolling his eyes and telling him to go on. "Well, we were watching _other people_ do stupid internet challenges.--"

"--of course you were.", Tony interjected with a laugh. "What else would you be doing on YouTube?"

"A lot of things actually.", Peter chirped happily. "Sometimes we watch Spider-man videos and sometimes we look up science experiments gone wrong or those dumb top ten lists. Did you know there's one about you? It's the Top Ten Things You Didn't Know About Tony Stark. Of course, I knew all of them. It was actually a pretty terrible list. Like, most of it was super obvious. Number nine was that you're Ironman. Duh. Everyone knows that.--"

"--Kid...", Tony said with a smile. "You're getting off track, here. Get back to the point."

"Right!", Peter said with a nervous kind of laugh. "So, we were watching these videos where people were eating things like crackers and stuff in a certain amount of time. Ned said he was pretty sure I could win those challenges because, well, I eat all the time. I thought that sounded like a reasonable assumption and went with it because it wasn't like we were going to test it or anything."

Having completely abandoned his work at this point, Tony turned the swivel chair he'd been sitting in so that he could get a good look at the teenager who was standing in front of him. "If you weren't going to test it then how did you lose twenty dollars?"

"I said we weren't_ going_ to test it. I didn't say we _didn't_ test it.", Peter explained, realizing that his explanation was probably lacking but he hadn't had a chance to get to that part and if he was going to tell the story he wanted to do it right. "You didn't let me finish yet."

"You're right.", Tony conceded with a smile. "Go on then."

Taking a seat in a chair nearby, Peter smiled and took a deep breath. "Flash overheard us and--"

"--Flash. That's the kid that gives you a hard time, yeah?", Tony cut in quickly because if this had to do with _that kid_ then the story may have suddenly gone from amusing to infuriating but he tried not to jump to conclusions yet.

Realizing what he'd just done, Peter sighed. He'd made the mistake of mentioning some of the more irritating things that Flash had said to him over the years and Tony had been less than thrilled. "Yes but--"

"--Is he the one you own money to?"

"Well, yes but--"

"--Nope! Not happening. Whatever that little--"

"--Mr. Stark!", Peter interjected, essentially cutting off his mentor mid-rant. "It's fine really. I lost fair and square. Let me finish the story.", he hurriedly explained, hands flying up in defense. "Come on, Please?"

Tony leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. "Fine.", he said calmly. "... but I reserve the right to decide for myself whether or not the little--"

"--Okay!", Peter nearly shouted over Tony's overly passionate opinions on Flash. He found it rather amusing, really. "Anyway, He heard us talking about it and bet me twenty dollars that I couldn't eat a whole pack of cheese and peanut butter crackers in less than a minute without drinking anything."

Kitting his brow in confusion, Tony shook his head. "...and you took that bet?", he asked sounding completely perplexed. The kid was smart. Very smart. Smart enough to know that was a losing bet from the beginning. Or so he thought until Peter started looking a bit sheepish and began stuttering through his excuses.

"It sounded reasonable at the time, Mr. Stark. Six crackers isn't really that much really and I eat on the run all time so... I thought you know... I'd had enough practice that it would work."

Having slipped from confused to amusedly interested, Tony huffed a laugh. "You know how spit works, right, kid?"

"Yes, Tony.", Peter stressed with a smile. "...but I thought I could do it. Ned thought I could do it. _Everybody standing there_ thought I could do it. Like, I really, really thought I had it."

"So this was a bragging rights thing, then? Everyone was watching so you figured you should go for it?", Tony asked even though he was almost sure that couldn't have been the case. Generally speaking, Peter didn't care to draw too much attention to himself. Well, at school anyway. Out on patrol was a completely different story. Then he couldn't keep his mouth shut. 

"No... I wanted to have twenty dollars.-- What! It's a lot of money.", he added stupidly when Tony started laughing. He'd just called twenty dollars a lot of money in front of a literal billionaire. He couldn't help it, though. To him,_ it really was a lot of money_. That was enough to take Aunt May out for an inexpensive dinner or two tickets to go see the newest Star Wars Movie with Ned when it came out. Things he didn't typically get to do. "Nevermind. You don't understand."

"Kid...", Tony said softly, realizing immediately that he'd made the boy feel bad. "I understand you want to make some extra money. What I don't understand is you were putting money on the table that you didn't even have."

Still feeling somewhat flustered, Peter started to stumble of his words. "I, I already told you. I thought I had it, Mr. Stark. I didn't think about, you know, what would happen if I lost..."

"So now, this kid thinks he's doubled his money while you're going into debt.", Tony stated blandly. It wasn't that he was trying to give the boy a hard time, he just didn't want him getting into the habit of rolling the dice on the odds between debt and profit. 

"I guess so... I mean, when you put it that way...", Peter floundered because he had honestly not put that much thought into it. It sounded like easy money and that was as far as his brain went before making an impulsive agreement. 

Bringing his hands up to rub small circles on his temples, Tony sighed. "Why don't you tell Flash he's not getting any money from you.", he suggested. He really didn't like the idea of that jerk making money off of his kid. Even worse..._ his money_ off of his kid.

Leaning back in his chair defeatedly, Peter started to grumble. Tony wasn't going to like what he was about to say and he really hoped he didn't go overboard. "He said if I don't pay up, he'll tell the school I stole the money from him. Then I would get in trouble and Aunt May would have to give him the money because it would be his word against mine and his parents, well, they put a lot of money into the school and I don't so... they would take his side."

As expected, Tony immediately went from casual to fuming. "Oh, I can put a stop to that.", Tony rapidly threatened, already typing some sort of information onto the screen in front of him. "Shouldn't take me long to find that kid's address. Then I can make this all go away in, well, a flash."

"Mr. Stark!", Peter called out in horror. The last thing he wanted was for Tony _or Ironman_ to show up at Flashes doorstep on his behalf. "You can't threaten a sixteen-year-old. ...or his parents."

"I'm pretty sure I can. I'm _extremely_ capable.", Tony seethed through his teeth but in reality, he knew the kid was right. It would be a PR nightmare and Pepper would have his hide... or worse.

"Okay, you shouldn't then. Please don't?", Peter whined having already jumped up out of his chair and grab ahold of one of Tony's rapidly typing hands to pull him back away from the screen. "Just let me borrow the money and I won't ever do anything like that again,_ I swear._"

After a few moments of thought, Tony opted to make something of a compromise. Though the idea of scaring the living daylights out of Flash was still his preferred method of resolution, he realized it was _a bit_ _risky_. "Alright, here's the deal, kid. I'm going to _give_ you the money to pay off this... jerk.", he grumbled unhappily before looking Peter over seriously "You don't have to pay me back. I won't even miss it, kid. You can even keep the change. ...but no more bets. Not with him. Not with anybody."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark!", Peter shouted in a mixture of relief and gratitude. "...and I won't. I promise."

Satisfied that Peter was satisfied, Tony took a deep breath and stood up to put a hand on each of Peter's shoulders. "Next time you decide you want some money on a whim, just ask me for it.", he lightly complained. He knew the kid wasn't rolling dough but he'd never expected him to go to such lengths to get a lousy twenty dollars.

Peter practically gasped at the idea of Tony thinking that he needed to offer to give him money. That had never been his intention ever and he felt the need to backtrack immediately. "I don't need you to do that. This was... I was being stupid, Mr. Stark. I don't need it. You don't have to give me any more money."

"Well, I'm doing it anyway. ...and before you ask! I'm mostly doing it _because I can_. ", Tony replied after some thought. Really he wasn't sure why he wasn't paying the kid already. He did more than his share around the labs and not just working on his own projects. He'd been helping him with his also for months now. "Besides, maybe it'll keep you from attempting to choke to death in an effort to get some cash."

Feeling slightly miffed that the man thought he would actually allow himself to choke to death, Peter tried to defend himself only to be cut off once again. "I wasn't--"

"--that's neither here nor there.", Tony said with a wave of his hand before pressing on as if Peter had said nothing at all. "I'm going to start paying you for your time in the lab. When you're helping me with my projects, anyway. You'll have a paid internship. We'll get it all set up on Monday."

Suddenly shocked rather than put off by the offer, Peter's eyes went wide. While he didn't necessarily want the man handing him money, he was more than willing to earn it. He hadn't realized that was even an option, though. "Really, Mr. stark? I thought to have a paid position, you had to be college or something..."

"It's my company, kid. I can do whatever I want.", Tony scoffed but in reality, he knew he was going to have to run this by Pepper. He was _mostly_ confident that she would agree with him though. She liked Peter, there was no way she would object to paying him. He already did more than most interns and he was more competent than all of them put together. 

"Oh." 

"Yeah, Oh.", Tony mocked with a smile. "Now, go put that money in your wallet before you lose it and get over here, kid. We have work to do."

Quickly shoving the money into his wallet, Peter followed Tony across the lab to the area they typically worked in with a giddy smile across his face because thanks to Tony, his less than perfect week was turning out okay. He'd learned his lesson for sure... and managed to land a paid internship position in the process. Then on top of that... even though he would never want it to really happen... the image of Tony fully suited up as Ironman standing on Flash's front porch, chewing him out was going to be enough to keep him smiling for the next year. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself and more than ready to do everything he could to impress his mentor who clearly cared about him. With all of that on his mind, he looked at Tony and sighed contentedly because for once in his life... he felt lucky. 


End file.
